Check out ‘London Burning: The Apotheosis of Statism’

Diane Carol Bast is an editor with The Heartland Institute and its finance manager. She oversees the production of books, policy studies, newsletters, and other publications produced by The Heartland.

Bast has edited or written more than 140 studies and 13 books on state and local public policy, including The Patriot's Toolbox (fourth edition coming Fall 2017), Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming (second edition January 2017), and Power to the People (2015).

Some of us here at The Heartland Institute have been corresponding about the riots in London and what it might mean for the U.S. Sam Karnick, Heartland’s research director, has written a very thoughtful piece with Mike D’Virgilio on this subject at The American Culture.

Sam, who lives and works in Indiana, will be in Chicago on Sunday to be a guest on the legendary Milt Rosenberg’s “Extension 720” program, on WGN radio, from 10:00 to midnight. Go here to listen live. We’ll also have an MP3 of Sam’s appearance up on this blog later next week.

… one might wonder whether there might just be a correlation between people being given something for nothing and their decision to do nothing and expect something. Even a cursory analysis of human nature as manifested over the last 5,000 years will tell you how predictable such “disillusionment” should be. Yet modern liberals always seem surprised when human beings behave in ways that any reasonable person would expect them to.

Of course, the modern liberal doesn’t anticipate such behavior among the underclasses (they predict it only among Southern U.S. whites, which hasn’t happened in decades, we are happy to report), because the only thing that’s wrong with the poor is that they have less money than they should have. The modern liberal’s understanding of human nature—insofar as they are willing to accept that there is such a thing—is clouded by their ideology, their desperate belief that the state, via wealth redistribution, can create social equality and individual happiness.